Welcome back! Here is what has happened on the 6th week of my internship:
I got to go on an office field trip to Skidmore College because my officemate is friends with one of the staff at their equine facilities and scored us a barn tour! That was extremely interesting, as I haven’t seen an equine operation that leans towards educational purposes (beyond lessons) yet. Furthermore, it’s a location that has a high number of horses on a small amount of property. As such, they had to be right on top of management in order to make sure every horse got their needs met everyday despite the low acreage! I also learned a couple of nifty tricks when it comes to arena footing. Because their arena was getting too dry too easily, they ended up incorporating some carpet fibers into their arena footing in order to hold in the moisture better to improve the air quality!
I was also invited to go to that same officemate’s personal farm and ask her some questions. She knows a lot about pasture management and fences, so I got the run-down on that and learned a little bit about how certain plants can tell you about soil quality without needing to get a soil test. For example, wild strawberries grow in acidic soil, so their presence may indicate that your pasture soil is more acidic than you want it to be. While there, I made the mistake of asking if I could see her hayloft, which getting up into was a little bit precarious (especially with my fear of heights!), but I survived. I also got to interact with her horses, which is something I don’t get to do at other farms due to needing to keep a professional manner.
That week, I also spent a lot of time scripting out and making phone calls to local farms so that I could meet with more farm owners and ask a set of questions. The purpose of this is to better refine the HFIP process so that we can figure out the best way to go about assessing farms and distributing educational resources to them. My officemate took a candid photo of me being an adult on the phone, as shown below.
The week after this is fair week for Saratoga County, so I have a feeling much of it will be spent with helping get the fair ready for all of the 4-Hers who will be showing their horses that weekend!